1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat-sensitive recording material and particularly relates to a heat-sensitive recording material which is particularly excellent in thermal response and preservation stability of white portions and images.
2. Related Art of the Invention
Heat-sensitive recording materials generally have a heat-sensitive recording layer on a substrate and the recording layer comprises as principal components a usually colorless or pale colored dyestuff precursor which is the electron donor and a developer which is an electron acceptor. When the recording materials are heated with a thermal head, hot-pen or laser beam, recording images can be obtained by an instantaneous reaction between the dyestuff precursor and the developer.
These recording materials are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication SHO 43-4160 and 45-14039, and have advantages that a record can be obtained with relatively simple equipment, maintenance can be conducted with ease, and noise is inhibited. As a result, these heat-sensitive recording materials are used in a broad range of fields such as measuring instrument recorders, facsimiles, printers, computer terminals, labels and automatic ticket vendors.
Heat-sensitive recording materials obtained by using conventional, electron donating colorless dyestuff precursors and electron accepting compounds have characteristics such as high color density. On the other hand, these recording materials have disadvantages that recorded images fade away when they are kept in contact with plastics such as polyvinyl chloride as plasticizers and additives that are usually contained in them migrate to the recording materials, that the preservation characteristic of the recorded images is inferior because the color of these images is deteriorated by contact with chemicals contained in food and cosmetics, or that the color of marks put on them using a marker on white portions change or marking causes color development. Consequently, these recording materials are restricted in the field of use, and improvement of these recording materials has been strongly desired.
As a means for improving the preservation characteristic of the recorded images and white portions, heat-sensitive recording materials using as the electron accepting compound salicylic acid derivatives having a substituent such as an alkyl group, aralkyl group, alkyloxy group, and aryl group or using metal salts thereof have been proposed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent SHO 62-169681, 63-22683 and 63-95977.
However, the salicylic acid derivatives described in these patents provide unsatisfactory preservation characteristic of developed images, insufficient preservation stability of white portions, and additionally low coloring sensitivity. Thus, these salicylic acid derivatives have been difficult to serve as heat-sensitive recording materials in practical high speed recording.